Love and Hypothermia
by Thaddeus MacChuzzlewit
Summary: "We're going to pretend this never 'appened. Nope. Sorry, Guv. I've got no idea where my shirt went. A well? What well? And if you say one word, LeBeau, about 'golden curls, gleaming in the moonlight,' I will punch you in the nose."


_I started this a while back, when a friend bet me I couldn't write romance. They won the bet, but I got this story out of it!_

* * *

 **Love and Hypothermia**

LeBeau couldn't help it. He actually caught himself giggling as he clambered over the low fence and dropped into the empty pastureland on the other side.

It was true that Newkirk's expression of indignation as he was abandoned to the dirty dishes at the Hoffbrau was laughable. But the hilarity of the situation was more based on the amount of alcohol LeBeau had consumed over the course of the evening. He _had_ needed a good excuse to stay at the bar and eavesdrop on the Nazi munitions expert. But just possibly his copious consumption had had more to do with the fact that it irritated Newkirk, who was playing Fränz the bus boy all night.

All right, it was almost entirely to irritate Newkirk.

That's why he had indulged himself and was now feeling a couple drinks too close to tipsy for his own liking.

It wasn't like it really mattered. The mission had been a success, and now all that was left was the tramp back to the camp in the quiet of the night. They had hours and hours until morning roll call, and LeBeau even had time for a nap before Newkirk finished with the dishes and met him at their meeting spot on the lonely farmland.

But as the moon disappeared behind another cloud, he found himself hoping Newkirk wouldn't take too very long. It was kind of hard to walk over the uneven tufts of nearly frozen grass. A sober companion would have made a nice alternative to a walking stick.

LeBeau tried to make his eyes focus on the stand of trees at the end of the field. There was a small farmer's house somewhere on the edge of the field, but they had never had any problems slipping by before.

If there were lights on in the house right now, they were obscured by the trees.

It looked like they were in the clear tonight.

Except…

The field wasn't as flat and empty as it usually was.

There was a dark mass casting shadow right in the middle of the grass.

"And what exactly is that?" LeBeau frowned. Somebody had left something in their field?

It would be highly inconvenient to have to change their route to and from the Hoffbrau. Therefore, it was up to him to investigate.

The small Frenchman lurched forward at a faster pace. Stealth was the issue here. He planted his feet carefully, and concentrated on keeping low to the ground. No mild intoxication was going to get LeBeau to drop his defences.

He froze with one foot extended, as a break in the clouds lit up the field.

It appeared to be some sort of half-sized building, or a large crate. There was no movement around, so as soon as the cloud-scattered sky provided him cover again, LeBeau rushed forward, pressing himself flat to the wall.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a wall.

At least it wasn't full wall.

His knees hit the edge of the wall hard and LeBeau tumbled forward.

Black.

No sense of up or down.

For a split second, he saw a bright circle of cloud-streaked sky, and then water closed over him.

He spluttered and kicked, his feet hitting wall but the impact knocking his face up past the surface. He was on his back. LeBeau squirmed and twisted until he was upright, coughing and trying to snort the water from his nose. The tips of his shoes brushed stone, and he realised he could touch the bottom if he straightened his legs.

LeBeau blinked.

He took a couple deep breaths, wiping all the water out of his eyes, and pushing the wet hair back from his face. A well? There wasn't supposed to be a well here, was there? He actually had to run through a mental map of the area to confirm that no, there wasn't meant to be a well in the middle of this field. And LeBeau was pretty sure he was in the right field.

A shiver ran up his spine as a splash of water lapped against his chin. It wasn't terribly cold, but he didn't like it, and he wanted out. Lower lip protruding, LeBeau looked around. The moon was in the clear now, and LeBeau could see every stone standing out in the walls around him. He could see every minuscule join in the masonry. It was way too slick to climb.

Smack!

The sound of a slamming door echoed across the open field like a gunshot. LeBeau froze.

"Hello? I heard you out here. You better scram! I'm warning you that I've got my father's shotgun and I'm not afraid to use it!"

It was a young woman's voice. Her words carried across the field clearly, and LeBeau took a minute to consider ducking his head under the water. The appeal of getting out of the water was stronger than the fear of being discovered.

"Who's there? I know you're out here."

"It's only me! I was just walking through your field and I fell down the well!" he shouted. Nervous people and shotguns were probably not a good combination, and LeBeau didn't particularly desire to get shot. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel: an expression Carter sometimes used. Why a person wouldn't use a net or a fishing rod to catch the fish, the American hadn't managed to sufficiently explain to him. He heard the slap of a hand against the side of the well.

"Don't shoot!" LeBeau cried. "You don't want blood in the well water! What would your Father say?"

There was a pause.

And then a head and shoulders appeared at the lip of the well, like the sun cresting the hilltops in a glory of golden beams, and LeBeau completely forgot about his potentially imminent demise.

"Who are you?" the young lady demanded, in a voice as clear and melodic as the piano in the rec hall, for the first five minutes after they tuned it, before half the keys went flat again.

"My name is Robert," LeBeau fumbled around a thick tongue. "I was cutting across your field, and didn't see the hole."

"You're French, aren't you?"

She was intelligent too!

" _Ouis_. I am French. I am visiting a cousin of mine, who works in the factory in town."

"I've never met a Frenchman before." She propped her elbows on the edge of the well, shotgun under one arm. The frilly edges of her sleeves garnished her hands like the delicate skin of a pork _saucisson_. "My name is Annegret."

LeBeau couldn't help from grinning like a loon. "I am most pleased to meet you, Annegret. I regret if I startled you."

She giggled. "That's alright. You probably didn't mean to fall in our well."

"It wasn't here before."

"No," she agreed. "They started digging it last week. It's not deep enough yet. We still haven't put up the last layer of stones, the bars, or the crosspieces. It's hard to draw water without a pulley."

"Yes. I know." Smiling, he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest. It didn't make him any warmer. He suddenly remembered he wanted to get out of the well. "Do you have any rope?"

"I don't think I can pull you up."

"You are probably right. Can you tie it to something and I'll pull myself out?"

The entrancing white circle of her face pulled back from his view. "Just a minute. Let me see."

A short time later, she was back. "I found some rope in our shed. But there's nothing here to tie the rope to."

LeBeau turned in a circle, hoping a hook would suddenly make itself visible at the top of the well. The movement made his head swim dizzily. "That is a problem."

"I brought out a coat for myself," Annegret told him. "Are you cold?"

"Yes. A little."

"I don't suppose it would help if I dropped you down a coat?"

"Probably not."

Annegret pursed her lips.

LeBeau rubbed his hands up and down his arms. Since they were both underwater, it didn't really do anything.

"I know! I just thought of something that might help!"

She brought two bottles from the house, and held them up so LeBeau could see. "My father always says a stiff drink warms the body and soul."

LeBeau shrugged benignly. He wasn't sure if that would actually work, but it couldn't exactly make the situation worse. "Can you lower me a bottle?"

His first sip sent him into a serious coughing fit. "This is very strong."

"It is, isn't it?"

"I feel impolite, _mademoiselle_ , drinking on my own. Join me, will you?"

Annegret leaned forward, grinning over the edge of the well at him. "If you insist." She opened the other bottle and took an injudiciously large swig. Her face turned a beautiful crimson as she actually tasted it; the colour went nicely with her hair.

As the alcohol began to hit LeBeau's system with a rush of warmth, he took another drink and stared at the angel above him. Flirting with the woman with the shotgun was a bad idea, LeBeau's common sense pointed out. Good thing his common sense had stayed back at the Hoffbrau with his sobriety.

"You have beautiful skin," LeBeau rambled. "Your face shines like a star in the moonlight."

"Really?" Annegret hiccupped. She curled a blond ringlet around her finger. "That's very sweet of you to say."

"They say there is nothing sweeter than the truth, and… and, you are truly the pit-pitcher of perfection."

A comfortable silence settled, and they worked their way through a good portion of their prospective bottles, Annegret watching the stars, and LeBeau watching Annegret. Eventually Annegret spilled a little of her bottle on the grass behind her. "#*$%. This is hard to hold. Tell me, Robert, something in French. I've heard it's the language of romance."

LeBeau took another sip. "I think it's 'a Romance language'. _Comme_ … like the Romans. I thick, th-think Italian is a Romance language too."

"Reeealy?" Annegret slurred. "Didn't know that. What's that even mean?"

"Not quite sure. They are all from the same falimy of languages?"

"What?"

"Falimy… family- Family."

"Oh."

LeBeau held up his bottle to the moonlight streaming from above. "What is this, exactly?"

"I don't know. Don't tell anyone. My grandfather makes it himself."

"It would proloby pair well with a cheese."

Annegret slumped a little further against the stones of the well. "Are you still feeling cold?"

"That iss a good question." LeBeau held his one free hand up in front of his face. He couldn't really feel it all. "No. I think -hic- your presence, _mademoiselle_ , is warming my heart from the inside out."

Newkirk peered across the field. He could barely see anything at all. Where was LeBeau? Wasn't this where they'd agreed to meet? Finally, the moon came out from behind the clouds and Newkirk saw a small figure standing by a big dark shadow on the ground.

"LeBeau?"

The shadow turned to him with a swivel of hips and a toss of long hair.

Newkirk stopped. "That is definitely _not_ LeBeau."

"Stop! Who are you and what are you doing here?"

The glint of moonlight off a shotgun barrel made Newkirk curse inwardly as he switched his thought process over to German. Spreading his hands wide, so they could be seen even in the dark, Newkirk shrugged. "My name's Fränz. I work in town and I'm just looking for my friend. He had a little too much to drink and wandered off somewhere."

The young woman frowned slightly. "This is my family's land you're standing on."

"Sorry about that." Newkirk kept his hands out where she could see them. "We're just passing through. You haven't seen a dark little fellow go by?"

A final patch of clouds left off their obscuration and it was easy to see the girl's reaction to his question. She looked over at the well.

"Seen him go by? Well..."

Well?

Oh no.

"Please don't tell me he's in there."

She pressed her hand to her mouth, and politely hiccupped behind it. "Sorry."

"Newkirk! Is that you?"

Newkirk sighed. When LeBeau was drunk, the first thing he lost was volume control.

"No," Newkirk shouted back. "It's Fränz."

"Who's Fränz?" he could hear LeBeau muttering to himself.

The young lady's shotgun was already slipping towards the ground, so Newkirk took a cautious step forward.

"I couldn't get him out," she said, blinking.

"No?"

"No." She leaned a little too far to the right, and ended up propped against the well. "He's really cute."

"Sure he is." Newkirk sidled up beside her. "Do you want me to hold that for you?"

Looking down at the shotgun, she frowned. "Thanks. Iss kind of heavy."

Newkirk immediately ejected the shells from the gun, and watched as the young lady slid further down the side of the well. "Well that was convenient."

"What happened?"

"I was trying to figure out 'ow to get rid of her, but your girlfriend just passed out. I think she's right smashed."

" _Deus ex machina_ ," LeBeau offered.

"I don't know that word."

There were two bottles sitting on the ground. Newkirk turned over a bottle with his foot. It was empty. They were both empty. He crouched down and picked one up. Whatever had been in there may have been alcoholic, but it wasn't anything he'd come across before.

Newkirk peered over the edge of the well, and shuddered. The well was wide, but fairly shallow. It was a miracle LeBeau hadn't drowned or broken his neck.

"Ow'd you get down there, mate?"

"I fell." LeBeau answered.

Newkirk rolled his eyes. "Well that's rather obvious. But why did you fall in?"

" _Je ne sais pa_. The well wasn't where it usually is."

"But it's never been anywhere before!"

"Exactly."

"You're really drunk, aren't you?"

"I dunno. Think maybe I am."

"Really, really drunk." Newkirk glanced around. There was really nothing in the area except grass. "LeBeau, what did the lady say?"

"Who?"

"The pretty bird up here."

"What bird?"

Newkirk frowned. "The young _fräulein_ you were talking to, not two minutes, ago."

"Oh. Annegret. Do you mean Annegret?"

"I guess so."

" _Un ange blond_ , with eyes like blue crystals in the _couronne_ of her lovely face, and-"

"Yes. That's the one," Newkirk said quickly.

"What about her?"

"Did she tell you if anyone else was 'ome?"

"Home? I want to go home. Newkirk, lets go hoooome."

"Never mind."

Newkirk crouched down beside Annegret. Pressing two fingers to the hollow of her throat, he checked her pulse. Not dead. Good. He'd have to carry her back to the farm house. Maybe leave her quietly on the doorstep. He tried to throw her arms over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. There was something caught on her hand that kept brushing his leg, and he swatted it out of the way.

With a snap, it came free, and whipped past him.

"Noooo!" Newkirk leapt forward but only managed to get a better view of the rope as it slithered over the side and disappeared into the bottom of the well.

"Hey. Something just d-dropped on my head!" LeBeau exclaimed. There was a moment of silence, and then he spoke again. "Is this what I think it is?"

His friend peered down into the darkness. "I'm afraid so."

LeBeau was silent for quite a while. "Newkirk, I want to go home," he slurred. " _Je suis fatigué._ "

Newkirk rubbed at his face. "I know you are. Just hang on a little longer, right mate?"

He didn't want to take the risk, or the time to go search the farmhouse at the end of the field for another coil of rope, and Newkirk could only think of one way to get the rope out of the well. Sighing, Newkirk drew on his more explicit store of vocabulary to comfort himself as he sat down on the ground and pulled off his boots.

A couple lines of a children's rhyming song drifted out of the well. " _Alouette_ , _gentille Alouette_... _Alouette_ , _je te plumerai_..."

Newkirk frowned and began tugging the laces from his boots. He tied them together and then dangled the laces over the side of the well. "Can you see that, mate?"

"See what?" LeBeau said.

"Guess that would be a no." Newkirk shrugged off his jacket and tied the end of one sleeve to the string of shoe laces. Then he took off his long-sleeved jersey and added that on too.

" _Je te plumerai la tête_... _je te plumerai la tête_... _et la tête_... _et la tête_..."

Newkirk pushed his new 'rope' over the edge of the well, hanging onto one end tightly. "Now can you reach it?"

There was a splashing noise as LeBeau hopped up and down, then shook his head, his face white in the reflected moonlight. Newkirk swore heartily, and looked around the open field. There was nothing in sight except grass, and more grass, and a bit of dirt as well.

"Bloody stupid Frenchmen 'oo can't 'old their liquor." Newkirk yanked his socks off and added them to the makeshift rope. Then he huffed a couple more times in protest and pulled down his trousers, tying one leg to his stretched out sock. The Englander carried his armful of 'rope' back to the well and leaned over the edge. He shivered slightly, feeling ridiculous standing barefoot in his boxers and thin undershirt. "You better appreciate this, LeBeau. I ought to leave you at the bottom o' the well."

" _Alouette_... _alouette_... _O-o-o-oh_... _Alouette_ , _gentille Alouette_... _Alouette_ , _je te plumerai_."

"Stop singing! Have you got the end of the rope?"

" _Oui_."

"Tie it to my shoelaces, and I'll pull it up."

The rope was wet, and heavier than he'd expected. Newkirk prayed the knot in his socks would hold. He could feel the tension stretching his clothing as he carefully pulled the line up to ground level.

"Got it!" As soon as it was within reach, Newkirk grabbed the end of the rope.

He directed LeBeau to tie the other end around his waist, and was soon hauling the smaller man out of the water. "Oi! LeBeau, you need to lay off the strudel. It feels like I'm pulling Schultz out of there."

LeBeau tumbled over the stone wall in a pile of uncoordinated limbs. He managed to roll into a sitting position, and sat against the wall, gaping like a fish on dry land. Newkirk knelt to untie the rope, and release his clothing from their heroic service. He held up his jersey, thumb and finger pinching the shoulders like a set of clothes pegs. He gave a rather forlorn sigh. "It's never going ta go back to the same shape. Is it?"

LeBeau said nothing, just stared at him like a wide-eyed puppy, water dripping from his hair, down his face.

"Oh why not?" Newkirk grumbled, and stripped off his undershirt. "Dry yourself off a bit while I haul your lady friend back to her house."

There didn't seem to be anyone else home at the farmhouse, so Newkirk laid Annegret on the sofa, arranging her limbs so she stayed on her side. Better be certain she didn't vomit on herself. He threw a blanket over her, and used his lock-pick to lock himself out of the house. Maybe she'd believe she dreamed the whole thing.

Drank two bottles of unidentifiable alcohol, misplaced a coil of rope, and dreamt the rest of it.

By the time he got back, LeBeau's hair looked a little dryer, but his undershirt was nowhere to be seen.

"Oops?" LeBeau offered.

Newkirk turned in a circle and then fisted his hands on his hips. "What did you do?"

"My hands-s are not-t working p-p-properly. It-t fell d-d-down the well."

"Ruddy 'ell!" Newkirk's eyes widened as he looked over at LeBeau. "Is that your teeth?"

LeBeau scowled, but didn't stop shivering violently. "Ye-yess-s-s. I'm-m c-cold-d-d."

Worried, Newkirk dropped to his knees in front of his friend and fumbled to undo LeBeau's jacket. They needed to get him home fast. His own fingers were already cold and numb, and he hadn't been sitting at the bottom of a well for a half hour. It wasn't easy to get the jacket off when Newkirk's senseless fingers kept slipping and smacking LeBeau in the chin, and LeBeau was shaking too hard to do anything but make the task harder.

Finally, Newkirk yanked off the jacket and began to peel his friend's shirt from his damp skin. It got stuck around his head, and it took some colourful bilingual cursing to get the collar undone far enough to come all the way off.

"'Ere. Stick yor arms up."

"Mmph."

LeBeau disappeared under Newkirk's mangled jersey and reappeared a moment later, the few dry hairs on the top of his head now sticking straight up with static.

"W-where d-d-did my hands-s-s go?" LeBeau slurred, staring at the long twisting sleeves with an expression of bewilderment. The arms had stretched so far that his hands sat somewhere close to the shirt's original elbows.

Newkirk stood up and surveyed the rest of the clothes discarded on the ground. "Don't worry. We'll find 'em later. You're just wearin' especially long mittens right now."

He rubbed at his jaw a couple time and then started pulling on own his trousers. "Sorry mate. I don't think I could get your trousers up past me knees."

He had to cut through the laces with his switchblade before he could get LeBeau's shoes off. LeBeau got his dry socks, which would hopefully help a little bit. His teeth weren't chattering as hard, but Newkirk wasn't entirely comforted by that development.

"Why are the lights still on?"

Newkirk glanced up. "Those are stars."

"Where d-did the ceiling go, then?"

"It's right where we left it, mate. We're outside."

"Outside of what?"

"Uh…" Newkirk fumbled as he stuffed his friend's arms through his jacket sleeves. LeBeau wasn't even trying to help, he just watched the whole process with a wide-eyed look of amazement. "There. Don't do it up, LeBeau. You're going to be my jacket and I'll be your radiator."

He pulled on LeBeau's wet socks, his own boots, and tied LeBeau's shoes up with the remains of his wet shirt.

"Alright. We're ready to go. Can you get up now?"

Nodding, LeBeau flung himself forward, and Newkirk ducked just in time to avoid cracking their heads together again.

"Never mind. Just sit tight a minute." Newkirk adjusted his cap one more time and then crouched down to haul his friend up by the armpits. Thank goodness it was LeBeau that had gone with him, and not Kinch, or maybe the Colonel. He doubted his own ability to haul that much muscle all the way back to camp.

"Put your arms around me neck. Got it?" Newkirk ducked to grab his friend's shoes and loop the sleeves over his elbow, and they stood, hitching LeBeau up into a proper piggy-back. Now LeBeau was snugly sandwiched between the jacket and Newkirk's back.

"Good to go?"

"Mmm."

Head down, Newkirk started back for Stalag 13.

The wide panels of his jacket were meant to cross over each other, and had been badly stretched, width-wise, so there was enough fabric to cover LeBeau, and still hang down over Newkirk's shoulders. It didn't help much. Water from LeBeau's hair was slowly dribbling down his neck, leaving his chest numb with wet and cold. The shoes thumped against his thigh until he couldn't even feel it any more, and the wet socks were chaffing his feet painfully.

It all felt a little less miserable when LeBeau finally perked up, and started talking moderately coherently. Of course, all he wanted to talk about was Annegret. Talk, and talk, and talk. Her hair, her voice, her eyes, her flawless complexion, her witty conversation, her potentially gorgeous curves, which he couldn't actually confirm existed, since he'd only ever seen her from the elbows up. She'd looked rather ordinary to Newkirk, but apparently she was now the sun, moon and stars of LeBeau's universe.

" _Elle est mon petit chou_. I'm in love," LeBeau said happily, his cheek pressed against his friend's shoulder.

"Trust me," Newkirk grumbled. "It's not love. It's hypothermia."

LeBeau grinned in response. "What's the difference?"

"You're 'opeless."

Stumbling on a tree root, Newkirk looked around and realised they were finally in the forest, not that far from the entrance to their tunnels. Soon they'd be back home, warm and dry.

"LeBeau?"

"Yes."

"This is all your fault. You drank too much, got right squiffy, and stepped where you ought not to. You're the one what's got to explain the whole thing to the Guv'nor."

LeBeau coughed, sending wafts of alcohol-heavy air past Newkirk's ear. "Coronation does not imply causation."

"What?"

"I god drunk. I fell down a well. That doesn't mean the two are necessarity connected."

"'Ow could they not be!"

"Twasn't my fault," LeBeau mumbled into his shoulder. "It was fate."

"Fate, my **. This is all your fault." Newkirk paused. "You're not even going to remember this tomorrow, are you?"

LeBeau stuck out his tongue, considering this. " _N_ _on_. Proloby not."

"Ruddy fantastic. Change of plans. We're going to pretend this never 'appened. Nope. Sorry, Guv. I've got no idea where my shirt went. A well? What well? And if you say one word, LeBeau, about 'golden curls, gleaming in the moonlight,' I will punch you in the nose."

"Mmm."

"Are you sleeping, now?"

"Mmm."

Newkirk indulged himself in a soft smile.


End file.
